Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Thursday that his first priority is to address the National Park Service's staggering maintenance backlog/Interior Department
In his first outreach to employees of the Interior Department and all its agencies, including the National Park Service, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote Thursday that his top priority is to address the maintenance backlog within the National Park System and ensure that any bill to address the nation's ailing infrastructure includes "shoring up our nation's treasures."
"The parks are part of our nation's crown jewels, famous the world over. The president is committed to a jobs and infrastructure bill, and I am going to need your help in making sure that bill includes shoring up our nation’s treasures," the secretary, who was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday and sworn in later in the day by Vice President Mike Pence, wrote in an email.
In his message, Secretary Zinke reiterated his admiration for President Theodore Roosevelt and his commitment to conservation.
"I'm an unapologetic admirer and disciple of Teddy Roosevelt. I believe in the traditional mixed use 'conservation ethics' doctrine laid out by (Gifford) Pinchot, but realize that there are special places where man is more an observer than a participant, as outlined by Muir," wrote the secretary. "I cherish our public lands. I have absolutely and unequivocally opposed any attempts to transfer, sell, or privatize our public lands, and serving as their top steward is not a job I take lightly. I approach this job in the same way that Boy Scouts taught me so long ago: leave the campsite in better condition than I found it."
Muir and Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, came at conservation much differently. Muir favored preservation of wild areas, while Pinchot thought resources on public lands should be utilized.
Pinchot and Muir became major antagonists on the issue of Hetch Hetchy Valley. The deepening schism between Muir and Pinchot eventually grew into a great split between the preservation wing and the utilitarian wing of the conservation movement. -- Sierra Club history
Beyond the National Park Service's maintenance backlog, which has been estimated at $11.9 billion but which Secretary Zinke pegged at $12.5 billion, the secretary also placed a high priority on improving employee morale and to respect the sovereignty of Indian Nations and territories.
Ryan Zinke headed to his first day as Interior secretary on a horse/U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
Regarding morale, Secretary Zinke said he intended to "ensure those of you on the front lines have the right tools, right resources, and flexibility to make the decisions to allow you to do your job. We serve the people, not the other way around. Washington has too much power. I think we need to return it to the front lines."
As for Native Americans, he wrote that, "I'm proud to be an adopted member of the Assiniboine-Sioux from Northeast Montana. My commitment to the territories and Nations is not lip service. I worked hand in hand with many of Montana's tribal governments to advance important legislation in the House. My first bill in Congress was to federally recognize the Little Shell of Chippewa Cree and most recently my Blackfeet Water Rights Settlement Act was signed into law earlier this year."
Secretary Zinke now must work on filling out his staff, including finding a director for the National Park Service.
Comments
INTERIOR SECRETARY NO FRIEND TO WILDLIFE:
This on top of the news today that the Interior Dept Secretary just signed the lead shot repeal into effect sentencing 20 million birds and animals to hideous death each year
http://www.scout.com/college/north-carolina/forums/5966-zzl-politics/154...
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-hangs-welcome-hunters-sign-on-fe...
Order of new sec. of Int.: repeal fed land bullet ban
Zinke signed the order on his first day in office, overturning a policy implemented by former Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe on Jan. 19, the Obama administration's last full day in office.
Ashe's policy banned the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on all FWS wildlife refuges that allow hunting or fishing, as well as in all other hunting or fishing regulated by the agency elsewhere.
It was meant to help prevent plants and animals from being poisoned by lead left on the ground or in the water.
"Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, said, "The revoked order would have stopped the needless, incidental poisoning of wild animals by toxic lead ammunition and fishing tackle on more than 150 million acres managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The order, grounded on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, had the potential to be one of the most effective policy decisions to protect wildlife, building on the wildly successful 1991 federal requirement for the use of non-toxic shot for the hunting of waterfowl nationwide."
I wish he was as capable or as conservation-minded as Ken Salizar or Sally Jewel.
I heard his speech to Interior today and I can honestly say I have no faith in this guy at all.
"I wish he was as capable or as conservation-minded as Ken Salizar or Sally Jewel."
Excuse me, Argalite? Under both, I seem to recall a great deal of heavy-handedness in the placement of wind and solar power on our public lands. Suddenly, everyone in the conservation community is worried about lead shot? Sure, it's a reasonable thing to worry about, but why not worry about the rest?
No, I get it. It's fine when birds and animals "take one for the team" in the interest of reversing climate change. Then we can fry them and/or dice them up all we want.
You want to know who I have no faith in? People who make heroes out of any bureaucrat, and that goes for both political parties. Salazar and Jewell were bureaucrats--perfectly comfortable, when it suited their president, in skirting the Endangered Species Act and other laws.
Mr. Zinke can't be any worse, can he? Oh, I forget. He's a REPUBLICAN. Well, let's see whether or not the label sticks. The label Democrat sure didn't save the likes of Ivanpah, but then, birds and animals living in the desert have no rights. They should have moved, and indeed were claimed to be moving, in every environmental impact statement that I read. It's no wonder the courts keep turning back these projects, and yes, I hope they ban lead shot, as well. But don't get too comfortable that your political party has a hold on environmental morality, because nothing is farther from the truth.
I just listened to part of Zinke's speech to Interior employees and then a follow-up interview on FOX. It's much too early to be certain, but based on what I heard him say today, I'm guardedly optimistic.
We need to watch and listen. Carefully.
Zinke already has shown himself to be worse by rescinding the lead ammo and tackle rule. He just gave toxicity back to the fish and wildlife. He has a all time lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters of 4%, and I don't care what political party you are from, that is a low score. Jewel was not a bureaucrat, previously was the CEO of REI.
"Zinke already has shown himself to be worse by rescinding the lead ammo and tackle rule."
What rule? The one just declared January 19? If the Obama Administration had been so environmentally inclined, why did it wait eight years to declare this "rule?" Director Ashe waits until Obama's LAST FULL DAY IN OFFICE, and suddenly goes "environmental" on us? That's not conviction--a belief in the environment. That's rather exactly the brand of hyprocrisy that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.
Trump aside, the American people have said they want change. In poll after poll, they honor his promise to provide it whether or not they like him. Here is the change I want--an end to the hyprocrisy on our public lands that sacrifices them to "causes" environmentalists happen to like, all the while forgetting that no cause is justified if it destroys the beauty, health, and permanence of those lands in any way. Sorry, but I believe in Aldo Leopold, not Ken Salazar or Sally Jewell. Nor did I wait until my last day "in office" to say so, or hide behind a pseudonym saying something else.
Yes, we should demand that level of conviction of Interior Secretary Zinke. And if he fails at it, he's fair game. So far, he has suspended one meaningless rule--made meaningless by the people who applied it. Now we'll see what rules he believes in, and agreed, he had better not wait four years.
sentencing 20 million birds and animals to hideous death each year
Assuming the 20 million is true (reference) - let's put that in perspective. First there are between 10 and 20 billlion birds in the US and god knows how many animals. An estimated 13.7 million birds die every day in the US for a wide range of sources including 39 million by cats, 60 million by cars, anywhere from 97-976 million from flying into windows, 174 million from electrical wires. Let's ban cats, cars, windows and wires.
https://thinkprogress.org/no-wonder-theyre-angry-13-7-million-birds-are-...
That is not an accurate account of bird deaths, and it's from 2011. New studies have shown that birds kill more, in a 2013 study, the authors found that:
The annual U.S. Mortality from cats is 2.4 billion birds, building windows 600 million, power lines 25 million, communication towers 6.6 million, power lines - electocution 5.6 million, wind turbines 174,000, automobiles 200 million. This study did not estimate how many die from agricultural chemicals or lead poisoning.
The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States
Scott R. Loss,Tom Will
& Peter P. Marra
Nature Communications 4, Article number: 1396 (2013)
doi:10.1038/ncomms2380